In a small business or large business, leadership that has a genuine concern for others (and their opinion and ideas) is desperately needed.

In his book, Leading Through Conflict (Harvard Business School Press), Mark Gerzon, an internationally known mediator, posits that we need a new kind of leadership, “…we need boundary-crossing leaders who can help the parts work together by strengthening the whole.”

This kind of leadership grows from a real concern for truth and for “the other” (even when “the other” is an internal adversary or rival). This leadership forsakes the demagoguery of self-absorption and the limited thinking of simplistic managerial leadership and focuses on building bridges, not walls.

A leader filled with mercy, kindness and truth – strengthening the whole – describes something Jesus would be about. Are you?

Proverbs 3:3-4 (AMP) Let not mercy and kindness [shutting out all hatred and selfishness] and truth [shutting out all deliberate hypocrisy or falsehood] forsake you; bind them about your neck, write them upon the tablet of your heart. So shall you find favor, good understanding, and high esteem in the sight [or judgment] of God and man.